Atkins Argumentative Essay

On April 25th, 1980 Bobby James Moore and two accomplices robbed a grocery store in Houston, Texas. During the robbery, Moore shot and killed the store clerk, a 76-year-old man named James McCarble and was consequently convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death. Moore appealed in both state and federal habeas relief courts and was granted relief by a federal court in the Fifth Circuit after arguing that precedent established in Atkins v. Virginia applied to his case. The habeas court granted relief based on the Atkins argument but the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas, reversed the ruling stating that Moore was not intellectually disabled based on Ex Parte Briseno and a 1992 definition of intellectual disability. In 2014 Moore filed a writ of certiorari arguing that his constitutional rights have been violated within his 8th Amendment protection against “cruel and unusual punishment” and in combination with the 14th Amendment’s due process clause which he believes to have been violated due to the delay of his sentencing, having lasted

Virginia and Hall v. Florida however, the appellant’s argument that his longevity on death row is unconstitutional is invalid and does not violate the 8th nor the 14th Amendments of the United States

The foremost of those being Atkins v. Virginia which decided that the execution of intellectually disabled people is unconstitutional due to Eight Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment. In Atkins v. Virginia the Court emphasized that a person could be considered intellectually disabled if they met three prongs: “sub average intellectual functioning (usually defined as an IQ that is two standard deviations below the mean, generally 70 or below with a 5-point standard error measurement) Significant